Help With WWII Army Apos

Greetings,

My father was in the Quartermaster Corps attached to the 8th Army in England during World War II. He has some material that may be of marginal interest to the Eighth Army Museum. Before I contacted them I thought I'd do a "philatelic scan." One of the things I came up with was this busy cover:






Here's the background:
My father got a letter from his cousin, S/Sgt Raab, dated Sept 25, 1944. He replied on Oct 8. S/Sgt Raab was a ball turret gunner (bad job) on a B-17 nicknamed "Stingy." Unfortunately, Raab was killed on Oct 11 when his plane was involved in a mid-air accident above Northamptonshire England.

http://www.sywellaerodrome.co.uk/news.php

This tracks with the postmarks. The letter was cleared by the censor and postmarked Oct. 10 from APO 636 (Near Bury St. Edmunds, England). It was received by the 338th Bomb Squadron on Oct 12. The letter was marked "deceased" and stamped "return to sender" (Why the return had to be "verified" by the Base Post office is my first question)
The reverse shows two receiving postmarks, APO 587 and APO 640, along with the date my father received the letter, Nov. 23. (Those are his initials above the stamp)

I have searched the threads here and on the internet and found some WWII APO lists. They are either incomplete or I am misreading them. I can't find the location of these APOs. Can anyone give me a lead? Lastly, was the letter mis-routed to go through so many APOs or was that customary? Any information would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Dan

Dan, thanks for posting, the "DECEASED" stamp is almost haunting. Many APO covers have multiple routings. At this time many units were moving from England to France. I believe that at this time APO 559 was at Camp Blainey England but I don't know what part of England that it was located.

I know very little about APO's from WWII, but I did an internet search and came up with the following

APO 587 = Knettishall, England
APO 640 = Sutton, Coldfield, Warwickshire, England

Maybe it will help.

Russ,

My poor little envelope couldn't take all those postmarks!




Yes, it is haunting. The 8th had over 26,000 casualties so I imagine by late 1944 you get a pretty stoic attitude toward processing information. One thing that startled me was that the letters etc. about this incident were sent back home in a matter-of-fact sort of way along with a Christmas greeting. Times were certainly different.

Rt1

Thanks for the info. Knettishall is close to Bury St. Edmunds. From my map, they way overshot with the APO 640.

What puzzles me is that APO 636 was a stationary QM location. I'm going to chalk up the receiving APOs to "Army efficiency." It doesn't look like anything significant.

Thanks!
Dan

You should consider adjusting your thread title
to include APO587 and APO640
People searching the internet may find your thread.
It may help both them and you.